“The room’s got a lot of damp.”
“Yes. .”
“And what’s through there?”
I thought he was talking about the garden.
“No, I meant on the other side of the wall.”
“Ah! It’s the room where they do the washing. That’s why it’s so damp.”
He smiled, baring toothless gums. He swung his legs — now one, now the other, now both together.
I’d never have thought a specialist would look like that.
Now I understood the maid’s contemptuous tone.
“Are you really the specialist?”
No answer. He bent his head to one side, then suddenly said:
“Okay, let’s get started.”
There was something commanding in the way he’d said it. I jumped out of bed, treading on his little shoes. He took a knife and a scraper out of his pocket. He showed them to me with solemn gestures, then began to examine the patch more attentively. It had a violet sheen again. It was beautiful. He gave me another look and got down to work, muttering something under his breath. First, using the knife, he smoothed the wall all around. Then, holding the scraper in both hands, he began scraping the patch itself. He worked slowly, jaw tightly clenched. I watched his rhythmic movements with admiration from my perch on the bed. Now and again he stopped, took a deep breath, inspected the wall close up as if he was nearsighted, and started to scrape again.
More than an hour passed, without any result. I don’t even know what I was expecting to happen. He didn’t say a word. Sweat poured off his forehead, and the veins in his temples seemed about to burst. Later in the day, when I was idly looking around, bored and sleepy, he uttered a little cry of triumph. The patch was turning red over a large part of its surface. The specialist ran his hand through his hair and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. He looked up at me with a start, as if he had only just noticed I was there. Then, as if issuing an order:
“Come and do some yourself!”
I eagerly took the scraper from him and bent over to work on the patch. My movements were faster than his, but it was obvious that I didn’t know to scrape properly. The tool gave out high-pitched squeaks, as if I were scraping a sheet of glass. He tried to encourage me:
“Come on, it’s always like that at first. Hold it straighter. That’s right.”
I was putting all my strength into it. The raw-meat red bored through my eye. After another hour, the patch had lost so much of its color that it was a pale pink.
“Let me have it now,” he said.
He worked the scraper as precisely and regularly as before. As the patch lost its color, he looked more and more violet. He scraped away happily, even began to whistle. A change took place in me too. I was no longer at all sleepy — in fact, I felt quite excited. I leaned over, looking at him and running my cheek against his russet locks. The patch had taken on a whitish hue. It looked like a windowpane covered with wash. The specialist turned his head to me, eyes gleaming. My heart was racing — but still I couldn’t imagine what was about to happen. That screeching of blade on glass, that grinding sound that had previously made me shiver. . The patch gradually became brighter. The little man’s weary hand, veins bulging, kept up the same rhythm. A final screech of the knife, then another cry of joy. The specialist moved sideways and shouted to me:
“Get a look at this!”
I was trembling as I groped my way along the wall like a blind man. I pressed my cheek to it, then my forehead, and finally my eyelids. I couldn’t see anything. I was too close, too excited. I swung round, gaping in confusion. The specialist, on the bed, had covered his face with his rough red hands. Maybe he was crying. When he looked at me, his face was flushed, his eyes fixed and staring.
“Did you see?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. His voice suddenly weakened, almost to a whisper.
“I don’t have the right. I find out where it appeared, I scrape and I scratch, I clean it. . But I don’t have the right.”
He ran his hand wearily through his hair. I didn’t understand a thing.
“Are you the specialist?”
He nodded, looking at me bitterly. He was so small and sad there, on the edge of the bed.
“Now. . I must be going.”
His steps were hesitant. He picked up his tools and put them in his pocket. He pressed gently on the door handle, looked again at the wall, then swung the door open and disappeared.
After he left, I tried hard to push the bed so that my head would be just below the magic spyglass.
Homesickness
I woke up alone in that creaking bed — do you remember? — a hard bed, where each passing body had added to the balls in the wool-stuffed mattress (if wool it was — there was certainly some kelp too), but that night, or what remained of it, and late into the morning, I slept like a log, and you went away and left me there, in that filthy hotel full of bedbugs — though I didn’t feel any that night — you went away and probably ran your hand through my hair as you left, and I stayed behind, there was no other way, the previous evening we had both seen him leave a tall old house near the port and, creeping along the walls, walk down the narrow winding streets that led to the cliff, you grabbed my hand and squeezed it, I put my arm round your shoulder, why are you afraid? no, I’m not afraid, but it’s terrible, why is he so nervous, why does he keep to the walls, what answer could I give you? He was dressed in his usual suit, a kind of evening costume with silk lapels, and no doubt he had a chrysanthemum or some other flower in the buttonhole. He dragged his long pointed shoes along the tarmac, walking in a daze without a glance to left or right, as if he had a precise goal and was afraid of arriving late. We followed him for a few hundred meters, then gave up. Yet you continued on your way, you recovered pretty quickly from the shock, you forgot about him.
We couldn’t help him anyway.
You’re right, we couldn’t help him. It would have been best to pretend we’d never seen him.
Never?
Yes, never. Except that I saw him again after you left — even though I did everything to avoid it; I didn’t think about him anymore, I tried to forget he existed. It would have been easier if we’d been together, you and I. But I woke up alone, in that wretched hotel bed; a newspaper was lying thrown in a corner, the very one that announced the circus was leaving town. You should have taken the paper with you.
You’ll say I’m a sentimental fool, but I can’t help it. Don’t think I’m not aware of it — although sentimental isn’t the right word. I don’t know how to explain.
It doesn’t matter, just drop it.
In fact, the announcement appeared in the paper a few days before the circus left. They’d known a long time ahead, since the day it arrived on the ship. People waited impatiently on the quay; it was a clear autumn morning, with a strong, unsettling breeze, and we waited with our hearts in our mouth for them to come ashore. It seems such a long time ago that I’m almost unsure it really happened — the noise in the crowd, that childlike gaiety, the excitement we all felt!. . What made the strongest impression on local people were the cages with gilded wire netting, from which all kinds of magnificent wild animals looked out with calm dignity, perhaps even a touch of mockery, at the photographers rushing crazily around and waving their cameras. Do you remember?
Well, they already knew they would leave one day: they probably even knew the exact date. Anyway, their boss — that strongly built man always dressed in blue — must have known for sure. Don’t you think so?
You see, I don’t like — how shall I put it? You don’t even need to be here for me to know in advance what you’d reply. I know all your answers. Maybe that’s the reason you left. Because you did leave — I’m sure of that. The light falls straight onto the newspaper abandoned there by the chair in the corner.